1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to roller bearings, and in particular to bearings with one or more rows of cylindrical rollers or "balls". The bearing has integral one-piece inner and outer ball race rings equipped with lipped rims confining the rollers to raceways and keeping the roller axes and bearing axis parallel. At least one of the rims has a feed notch for receiving rollers during assembly, and at the feed notch means are provided which prevent any of the cylindrical rollers from dropping out of the raceway into the feed notch.
2. Prior Art
According to the needs of a particular application, roller bearings with cylindrical rollers are known in various different configurations. However, bearings with cylindrical rollers always require some means to ensure that the cylindrical rollers remain with their axes parallel. Roller bearings of this type are possible with an outer ball race ring having two rims confining the rollers and a rimless inner ball race, or vice-versa. For cylindrical roller bearings which are to be used as fixed bearings capable of bearing forces in one or both directions along the axis of rotation (i.e., longitudinal forces with respect to a shaft carried in the bearing), such bearings to date have had three sections. Cylindrical rollers for such axially-loadable bearings are carried between the ball race rings and are confined by rims formed thereon. In order to load the raceway between the bearing rings with the cylindrical rollers, one ball race ring is equipped with two rigid rims and the other ball race ring is equipped with one rigid rim, so that the cylindrical rollers can be inserted. Either a loose rim disc or a separate thrust collar is then added and defines a fourth rim for confining the balls against the single rim ball race ring. Another possibility for loading the raceway requires that each of the ball race rings be manufactured in integral pieces, each having opposed fixed rims, one of the ball races then being split, and both sections at the split being fastened together again with additional fastening devices, after insertion of the cylindrical rollers.
An attempt to surmount these difficulties is disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 1,212,253. In that patent, the means to prevent the cylindrical rollers from moving from a raceway into a feed notch consists of an expanding spreader ring. This solution has the disadvantage that at a given outer dimension of the bearing, the cylindrical rollers must be made axially shorter by the size of the expanding spreader ring. The carrying capacity of such bearings is therefore smaller than for bearings without an expanding spreader ring. Another disadvantage of such an expanding spreader ring is that both the recess in the race ring and the expanding ring must be manufactured with the greatest precision because the expansion ring has to function as the rim that controls the axial position of the rollers to keep their axes parallel. Manufacture therefore is a very complicated process which practically cannot be performed on an industrial basis because the expanding spreader ring must ensure such exact control of the rollers.